This decision arises from the State's appeal from the granting of a motion to
suppress evidence in a Will County DUI case. No trial has yet occurred.

Based on events which occurred in the summer of 2008 in Joliet, Dennis Hackett
was charged with aggravated driving under the influence of alcohol and aggravated
driving while license revoked. He filed a motion to suppress evidence, claiming that
the evidence gathered after an "improper stop" by a county deputy constituted the
fruit of an illegal search. The officer, Hackett claimed, lacked probable cause to make
the traffic stop, which was purportedly based on improper lane usage. The circuit
court granted the motion to suppress evidence, finding that defendant's "momentary
crossings" of a highway lane line did not provide "reasonable grounds" for a traffic
stop. The State appealed. The appellate court, stating that it "acknowledge[d] that
Hackett was drunk" and that "the confirmation of his inebriation was the basis for his
motion to suppress," nevertheless agreed with the suppression. The State appealed
again.

Hackett was seen traveling north on a divided highway whose two northbound
lanes were marked by a line. The arresting officer testified that he first saw defendant
driving in the right-hand lane and then saw him move to the left. Subsequently, he
saw defendant move over slightly to the right so as to be partially in the right-hand
lane on two separate occasions before turning left onto another street just prior to his
arrest. The arresting deputy observed no practicable reason why Hackett could not
have driven within his own lane, such as potholes or obstructions. Hackett, who
admitted he had been drinking, offered no affirmative testimony to the contrary,
merely speculating that potholes might possibly have accounted for his lane
deviation. No one was endangered in the course of these events.

The supreme court reversed the appellate court and held that the motion to
suppress should not have been granted. A traffic stop may be justified on something
less than probable cause, and the less exacting standard of "reasonable, articulable
suspicion" justifying an investigative stop will suffice for purposes of the fourth
amendment. That standard was met here.

In People v. Smith, 172 Ill. 2d 289 (1996), the supreme court held that a motorist
is engaged in improper lane usage when he "crosses over a lane line and is not
driving as nearly as practicable within one lane." The supreme court held here that
its 1996 decision in Smith was misinterpreted by the appellate court in this case when
it ruled that a motorist must drive "for some reasonably appreciable distance in more
than one lane of traffic" for there to be a statutory lane violation. The appellate court
erred when it attached a distance requirement because the distance a motorist travels
is not a dispositive factor. The supreme court stood by its Smith ruling and held that
where, as here, an officer observed multiple lane deviations for no obvious reason,
an investigatory stop was proper. Because the circuit court's suppression order had
been improper, the cause was remanded there for further proceedings.